No. 11 Baseball Hosts UTSA
2/16/2004 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Complete Release in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
No. 11 BAYLOR
vs.
TEXAS-SAN ANTONIO
6:00 p.m. CST
Feb. 17, 2004
Baylor Ballpark
Waco, Texas
Baylor returns to action Tuesday, hosting Texas-San Antonio for a single game at Baylor Ballpark. First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m. CST. Baylor (2-1) and UTSA (2-1) started their 2004 campaigns in much the same way, dropping Saturday contests before rebounding for Sunday doubleheader sweeps. The Bears went 2-1 against Loyola Marymount at home over the weekend, while the Roadrunners took two of three at New Mexico State. This is the only scheduled meeting of the 2004 regular season between Baylor and Texas-San Antonio. All Baylor baseball games are carried in Central Texas on KRZI 1660/1580 AM. Live stats also are available for all home games and most road games at www.BaylorBears.com, the official website of Baylor Athletics and a member of the Official College Sports Network.
THE TEXAS-SAN ANTONIO SERIES
Baylor and Texas-San Antonio meet on the diamond for the 22nd time Tuesday. The Bears hold a commanding 19-2 advantage in the all-time series, which dates back to 12-4 Baylor victory Feb. 23, 1993 at San Antonio. UTSA began its baseball program in 1992. Nearly all the Baylor-UTSA contests have come during head coach Steve Smith's tenure. The Bears are 17-0 against the Roadrunners in that time, including wins of 9-0 at San Antonio and 10-3 at Baylor Ballpark last season. UTSA's two victories in the series both came during the 1994 season: 10-2 at San Antonio (2/23) and 7-6 at Ferrell Field (4/27). Baylor is 12-1 against UTSA in Waco.
THE TEXAS-SAN ANTONIO ROADRUNNERS
Texas-San Antonio (2-1) is in its third season under the direction of head coach Sherman Corbett, a 1985 Texas A&M graduate. Corbett has amassed an 86-86 career record, all coming at UTSA. Corbett pitched in the Majors for the then-California Angels. He also spent time in the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs organizations.
UTSA Notes: The Roadrunners opened their 2004 season this past weekend, taking two of three at New Mexico State. UTSA dropped the Saturday game 13-12, a game in which NMSU scored eight runs in the bottom of the eighth and UTSA plated six runs in the top of the ninth. The Roadrunners swept Sunday's doubleheader, winning 9-7 and 15-5. The two teams combined for 65 hits in the three-game series, 37 off UTSA bats. ... The Roadrunners hit .343 on the young season with nine home runs and 36 runs scored. UTSA is 10-of-11 in stolen bases, and the team sports a .969 fielding percentage (three errors on the year). ... CF/Leadoff Sam Mitchell (.429, 2 HR, 7 RBI) and SS/3-hole Ryan Crew (.429, 1, 8) pace UTSA offensively. LF/5-hole Chris Lewis (.385, 2, 4) joins Mitchell and Crew as one of seven Roadrunners with home runs this season. ... UTSA sports a staff ERA of 8.62 with one complete game and no shutouts. ... LHP Chad Kuck (1-0, 2.70 ERA) is the only pitcher on staff with an ERA below 6.00. He earned his victory in 3.1 innings of relief work during Sunday's first game. RHP Klae Boehme (1-0, 6.14) earned a complete-game victory in Sunday's second game, a seven-inning affair. He also pitched one-third of an inning Saturday. ... Crew has made two of UTSA's three errors this season, all of which came in Saturday's contest. ... UTSA assistant coach Jim Blair is a Baylor graduate and was the starting LF for the Bears' 1996 squad. He hit .277 with one home run, 26 RBI and 11 stolen bases.
QUICK NOTES
* Baylor and UTSA meet for the 22nd time Tuesday. The Bears lead the series 19-2 and have won each of the last 17 meetings.
* LHP Cory VanAllen was named one of five National Players of the Week by Collegiate Baseball following his combined no-hitter with RHP Zane Carlson Sunday against Loyola Marymount. The game was a seven-inning affair, the fifth seven-inning no-no in Baylor history and the seventh overall. It was the first no-hitter by Baylor pitchers since Kyle Evans' nine-inning gem April 15, 2000 against Iowa State. VanAllen is the first Baylor freshman to participate in a no-hitter.
* Head coach Steve Smith enters the Tuesday's game against UTSA five wins shy of career victory No. 350.
* RHP Zane Carlson needs one appearance to tie Matthew Marcom's school record of 91 career appearances.
* RHP Zane Carlson needs one save to move into a tie for sixth on the NCAA all-time career saves list. He needs two saves to move into a fifth-place tie.
* 2B/SS Drew Sutton began his Baylor career with hits in each of his first four at bats. He also reached base safely in each of his first five plate appearances. Sutton currently leads the Big 12 in batting average at .700.
* Baylor has been ranked nationally for 24 consecutive weeks, dating back to the 2003 preseason rankings. The Bears have appeared in the national rankings during 100 of the last 101 weeks. Baylor has been ranked during each of the past 80 regular-season polls. The Bears' last regular season game as an unranked team was Feb. 21, 1999, an 8-2 victory over then-No. 24 Houston.
* Since the start of the Big 12 in 1997, the Bears have the league's best conference record at 124-71 (.636). Baylor leads all conference schools in both first-team all-Big 12 selections (21) and first-team Academic all-Big 12 selections (35), and the Bears are the only Big 12 Conference program to have ranked in the top 10 nationally during each of the past six seasons (1998-2003).
* Baylor is the only Big 12 school and one of just 12 schools nationwide to have been named to each of the past six NCAA Tournament fields; the others are Auburn, Cal State Fullerton, Clemson, Florida State, LSU, Miami, Oral Roberts, Rice, South Alabama, Stanford and Tulane.
* Baylor has won 40-plus games four times during head coach Steve Smith's tenure and nine times in school history, including a school-record 45 wins last year.
* In 2003, USA Baseball named Baylor the 23rd-best program in the nation at providing players for the USA National Team. Six Bears have played for a total of seven seasons wearing the Red, White and Blue: Pat Combs (1988), Jason Jennings (1997-1998), Bryan Loeb (1998), Jon Topolski (1998), Zane Carlson (2000) and Michael Griffin (2003).
* Baylor has had 39 players drafted in the past six years, including four first-round picks. That total ties Texas A&M for the most in the Big 12 during that period.
* Baylor Ballpark was named the No. 3 collegiate stadium in the country in a survey of college coaches conducted by Baseball America in January 2003.
* Baylor Ballpark also was featured as the January Stadium of the Month in the 2004 Baseball America Great Parks Calendar. The Bears' home was the only collegiate facility featured.
* Collegiate Baseball has ranked Baylor's recruiting class among the top 25 in the nation four times in the past six years (23rd, 1998; 25th, 2001; 13th, 2002; 19th, 2003).
SMITH NEARS ANOTHER MILESTONE
Baylor head coach Steve Smith is five wins away from victory No. 350 in his collegiate career, all coming at Baylor. Now in his 10th season at the helm of the Baylor program, Smith is 345-202-1 (.630).
VANALLEN HONORED BY COLLEGIATE BASEBALL
LHP Cory VanAllen was named one of five National Players of the Week Monday by Collegiate Baseball. VanAllen was honored after combining with RHP Zane Carlson for a seven-inning no-hitter in Baylor's 1-0 victory over Loyola Marymount in the second game of a doubleheader Sunday at Baylor Ballpark. A true-freshman from Sugar Land, Texas, VanAllen carried a perfect game into the seventh inning before leadoff batter Billy Lockin reached by virtue of an error. Carlson then came in and closed the door on LMU, preserving Baylor's seventh no-hitter and first since 2000. VanAllen is the first Baylor freshman to ever participate in a no-hitter. The southpaw did not walk a batter and struck out four in his 6.0-plus innings of work. Others honored by Collegiate Baseball this week were Zach Jackson (LHP, Texas A&M); Luke Holscher (RHP, Western Michigan); Jared Weaver (RHP, Long Beach State); and David Purcey (LHP, Oklahoma). Baylor is likely to face Jackson, Weaver and Purcey this season.
CARLSON EYES NCAA SAVES MARK
With two saves in the Loyola Marymount series, senior RHP Zane Carlson needs 13 saves to break the NCAA Division I career record. The nation's active career saves leader starting the year, Carlson has 36 during his four-plus seasons at Baylor. Former Southern California closer Jack Krawczyk currently owns the record; he tallied 49 saves from 1995 to 1998. Carlson already owns the Baylor and Big 12 Conference records for career saves. As a freshman in 2000, he established Baylor's single-season saves record with 15, ironically also the school career mark at that time. On top of that, Carlson owns the Cape Cod League career saves record with 24. Carlson needs one save to move into a sixth-place tie on the all-time NCAA list and two saves to move into a fifth-place tie.
BAYLOR IN THE NATIONAL RANKINGS
Baylor moved up one spot in this week's Baseball America Top 25 and held tight in each of the other three polls. The Bears are now 11th nationally according to Collegiate Baseball, 12th in the Sports Weekly/ESPN Coaches and Basball America polls. Baylor was 16th in last week's National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll, which is not released until Tuesday. The Bears have been ranked nationally for 24 consecutive weeks, dating back to the 2003 preseason rankings. Baylor has appeared in the national rankings during 100 of the last 101 weeks and during each of the past 80 regular-season polls. The Bears' last regular season game as an unranked team was Feb. 21, 1999, an 8-2 victory over then-No. 24 Houston.
2004 SCHEDULE AMONG NATION'S TOUGHEST
Baylor's 2004 schedule ranks as the nation's 10th-toughest, according to the preseason schedule rankings released by BoydsWorld.com. The Bears' 2003 schedule was ranked first in the preseason rankings and was deemed the fifth-toughest by season's end. One component of schedule strength is the strength of one's opponents' schedules. Baylor plays 13 teams ranked the preseason top 30 in the strength of schedule rankings: Arizona (2nd), Cal-Irvine (4th), Texas (5th), Long Beach State (7th), Texas A&M (13th), Houston (14th), Oklahoma (19th), Rice (20th), Texas Tech (22nd), Oklahoma State (23rd), Texas State (25th), Loyola Marymount (26th) and Nebraska (28th).
BIG 12 CONFERENCE NOTES OF INTEREST
* Baylor and Texas A&M pitchers tossed no-hitters against Loyola Marymount and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, respectively, to give Big 12 moundmen a combined three gems in the first month of the 2004 campaign. From 1997 to 2003, there were four total no-hit contests hurled by Big 12 pitching staffs; the eight-year tally now stands at seven.
* Oklahoma stopped the NCAA-longest streak of games without a shutout at 506 after blanking Top-10-ranked Arizona State 6-0 last Sunday in the Surprise (Ariz.) Coca Cola Classic.
* Big 12 teams for the week (all contests from Feb. 13-15 because of a rainout and a Feb. 12 exhibition outing) finished a composite 18-9 against rugged non-league opposition.
* Kansas was within three outs of upending second-ranked Stanford at the famed Sunken Diamond with a 6-3 advantage before falling to the Cardinal 10-6. Brian Hall's walk-off grand slam capped a seven-run ninth for 2003 College World Series finalist Stanford. The Jayhawks also currently have played the most Division I contests in the early portion of the season with 15 (7-7-1 record).
UP NEXT ...
Baylor hits the road this weekend, traveling to California for a three-game weekend series at No. 8 Long Beach State. This is Baylor's lone non-Big 12 road series. The Bears and the 49ers meet Friday at 8:30 p.m. CST, Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.
